to the guidance of a persuasive hand, but
held to her question. "Whose mill was it?"

"My grandfather's. Take care of the little step ... you shall see it
again to-morrow by daylight. Bed's the place for you, dear Mrs.
Prichard. Why--see!--you are shaking all over."

So she was, but not to such an extent as to retard operations. The
old white head was soon on its pillow, but the old white face was
unusually flushed. And the voice was quite tremulous that said,
inexplicably:--"How came _your_ grandfather to be the owner of that
mill?"

Even a younger and stronger person than old Maisie might have lost head
to the extent of not seeing that the best thing to say was:--"I have
seen this model before. I knew it in my childhood." But so dumfoundered
was she by what had been so suddenly sprung upon her that she could not
have thought of any right thing to say, to save her life.

And how could Widow Thrale discern anything in what she _did_ say but
the effect of fatigue, excitement, and underfeeding on an octogenarian;
probably older, and certainly weaker, than her mother? How came _her_
grandfather to be the owner of Darenth Mill, indeed! Well!--she could
get Dr. Nash round at half an hour's notice; that was one consolation.
Meanwhile, could she seriously answer such an inquiry? Indeed she
scarcely recognised that it _was_ an inquiry. It was a symptom.

She spoke to the old head on the pillow, with eyes closed now. "Would
you dislike it very much, ma'am, if I was to put one spoonful of brandy
in the gruel? There is brandy without sending for it, because of
invalids."

"Thank you, I think no brandy. It isn't good for me.... But I like to
have the gruel, you know." She would not unsay the gruel, because she
was sure this kind-hearted woman would take pleasure in getting it for
her. Not that she wanted it.

Widow Thrale went back to the kitchen to see to the gruel. She was
absolutely free from any thought of the model, in relation to the old
lady's indisposition, or collapse, whichever it was. Lord Nelson
himself, on the wall, was not more completely detached from it. While
the gruel was arriving at maturity, she wrapped the covering again
carefully over the mill and the wheelsacks and the water-cart, and
Muggeridge, and replaced it on the chimney-shelf.

Left alone, old Maisie, no longer seeing the model before her, began to
waver about the reality of the whole occurrence. Might it not have been
a dream, a delusion; a